Desert Arabian Heritage Groups in the West

During the past 50 years, groups of breeders have focused on certain blood­lines, each consti­tuting a sub-​​group of Desert Arabian horses. Geneti­cists call these “heritage groups” because they focus on perpet­u­ating partic­ular traits or descen­dants of a limited number of foun­da­tion animals. These groups are impor­tant reser­voirs of genetic mate­rial that would be lost more quickly if the entire popu­la­tion of Desert Arabians were bred together.

A gener­al­ized descrip­tion of each group follows. For a more detailed expla­na­tion of how the Heir­loom, Sheykh Obeyd, and Pyramid Society Straight Egyptian foun­da­tions relate, go here.

Al Khamsa

Horses in North America descended entirely from foun­da­tion horses researched by Al Khamsa, Inc. that are “reason­ably assumed” to descend entirely from Bedouin-​​bred horses. [More…]

Asil Club

German-​​based orga­ni­za­tion that iden­ti­fies asil horses from every country that meet its criteria as being of exclu­sively Bedouin origin. [More…]

Asso­ci­a­tion du Cheval Arabe Bédouin

A recently-​​formed orga­ni­za­tion, ACAB focuses gener­ally on asil horses in France. [More…]

Blue Star/​Blue List

Horses that trace entirely to those iden­ti­fied by Mrs. John Ott and Miss Jane Ott in the 1960s Blue Arabian Horse Catalog that were imported to the US and have no recorded Muniqi blood (Blue List are horses from the Catalog that have Muniqi blood). [More…]

Daven­port

Horses that descend entirely from Homer Davenport’s breeding, mostly from 15 of 27 horses brought from the desert in 1906. [More…]

Heir­loom

“The Heir­loom taproot horses are the Al Khamsa Foun­da­tion Horses and their prede­ces­sors exported from Arabia Deserta before 1914 from which the Root Mares and Root Stal­lions of the RAS descend.” Two vari­ants add El Deree or Badouia. [More…]

Sheykh Obeyd

Descending entirely from horses of seven breeders, six of which were in Egypt, the seventh being the Blunts, who main­tained studs in both Egypt (Sheykh Obeyd) and England (Crabbet). [More…]

Straight Egyptian

Gener­ally used to refer to horses of interest to The Pyramid Society and tracing entirely to horses bred in Egypt and meeting the Pyramid Society defi­n­i­tion. [More…]